Former President Benigno Aquino III was reported to have been fined P500 for smoking in public in Boracay and throwing cigarette butts on the beach.
Aquino was said to have been caught by a Boracay police officer PO2 Manuel Siason when he threw a cigarette butt on the beach on August 25. He was asked to pay P500 and pick up the trash.
Siason was quoted saying the following statements:
“Hindi naman kasi siya nagreklamo nong sinabi ko na damputin niya yong upos. Wala ring body guard kaya sino ba naman ang mag-aakalang si Pnoy yon.”
“Di naman siya nagreklamo, ngumiti lang tapos nag sorry.”
At least, that is the story that was posted by satirista.me, which is claiming to be a satirical website. Unfortunately, the website’s name was not enough to warn off netizens from buying the story because as of writing, it has been picked up by other blogs and has been shared over 11,000 times.
Here’s the site’s disclaimer:
When we checked out satirista.me, we noticed that it was linked to the Facebook page of the fake news site okd2.com.
We Googled both statements allegedly made by the Boracay cop to check whether they were also carried by more credible sources, but they aren’t. They can only be read on satirista.me.
This meant the satirical website simply made up a fictional story about Aquino getting caught in Boracay for public smoking and littering. What’s true, though, is that the former president smokes.
Despite the Facebook page Showbiz Government sharing the story with the word “Satire?” it did not stop netizens from believing that the story is true. Just look at these comments:
One commenter even suggested planting drugs on Aquino to justify shooting him.
As for the feature image used, it seemed to be an old one as we found it used by a writer for veteran journalist Ellen Tordesillas’ website for a 2010 article about Aquino’s smoking habit.
While scanning the comments on Showbiz Government’s post about the satirical Aquino story, we stumbled upon this comment by one of the girls who was in the featured image used by the blogs that shared the story.
“That’s me and my sister in the picture and that picture was taken 7 years ago in Bombo Radyo Kalibo, Aklan and not in Boracay. Please be aware of what you post and share. FAKE NEWS of DUTERTARDS,” BelBel Salas Israel wrote.
Just recently, Aquino also became the subject of fake news that claimed he was seriously injured after getting involved in a “deadly car accident.
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